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by a tolerably smart little horse. I demanded the terms and the time, which appeared satisfactory — jumped at once into the seat drove to the inn for my trunk and sac de nuit and, in twenty minutes, was rattling over the Carraja bridge on my way to Pisa. I had counted, however, without my host-for, near the Porta Frediano, my bandit-visaged JEHU stopped short at a door, where stood a passenger with half-a-dozen boxes and baskets, waiting for the carricello which had been engaged by him, for the same journey! Our mutual surprise was as great, as our remonstrances were vain. In our bargain, we had made no clause for solitary travelling-and our wily vetturino maintained that two people would jog along the road much more comfortably, though rather more slowly, than one! I was more amused than vexed at this little incident; and could not foresee much inconvenience from the society of a fellow-passenger along the banks of the Arno. Never did two faces present such contrasts, as did those of my youthful companion and our conductor. The former was as smooth, pale, and void of expression as a lump of spermaceti moulded into the doll-like resemblance of a human countenance. He was a young law-student on his way to the university of Pisa, with his library, his wardrobe-and, I verily believe, with provender for half the academic session. French, Latin, and bad Italian were lost upon my fellow-traveller, for never could I extort more than si and No from his costive lips! The visage of the vetturino, on the contrary, was pitted and seamed by small-pox and its consequences-his eye-brows were shaggy-his eyes dark, penetrating, and scowling—his nose aquiline-his chin projecting -and his whole countenance indicative of damnable ferocity. If I am any judge of physiognomy, our lives would not have been worth six hours' purchase in the company of such a bandit, among the mountains of the Abruzzo, or anywhere else that presented opportunity for murder and pillage! But, in the VAL D'ARNO, and with an English pistol in my breast, the diabolical countenance of this savage only afforded me amusement.

The first ten miles of the Leghorn road were in the primary stage of MACADAMIZATION, and I soon perceived that, instead of getting to Pisa that night, as was promised, we should not accomplish one half of the journey, so loaded, or rather overloaded was the poor little BESTIA. This unpleasant reflexion, however, did not prevent me from admiring and enjoying the beauties of the lower valley of the Arno. I had not seen a more beautiful or romantic piece of country in Italy, than that which we traversed this day. The beauty and tranquillity of the scenery are enhanced by the appearance of comparative comfort among the population. The whole road from Florence to Pisa appears to be a straw-bonnet manufactory, every hand being employed in platting sinnot for the shops of London and Paris. Industry was every where visible along the road, with its usual attendants, HEALTH and

CONTENTMENT.

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Night was closing in, before we got to the little town of IMPOLI, where our guide was to have his first relay-horse. We drove to a paltry inn: and, after some whispering and confabulation between the vetturino and the host, we were informed that there was no horse at home, but that we might sup and sleep very comfortably, while the fatigued BESTIA enjoyed the same indulgence. At this intelligence my taciturn companion shewed strong symptoms of finding his tongue-for his visage sensibly changed from the globular to the elliptic form, while something like an emotion of the Penseroso cast might be discerned, by a good eye, on his monotonous countenance. This did not escape the master of the hotel, who drew him aside, and whispered something in his ear, which I did not hear, but which I so perfectly understood that I would swear to the words :-" NEVER MIND! THE ENGLISHMAN SHALL PAY FOR YOUR BED AND SUPPER." 199 Being fatigued by walking a great part of the way, and not wishing to lose the remaining scenery of the Val d'Arno, Í very readily complied with the invitation-enjoyed a hearty supper, to which I invited my young legal companion, knowing that I should pay for his fare at all events-slept soundly-and started long before sun-rise, for Pisa.

PISA.

The country loses none of its romantic beauties till we approach Pisa itself, which is situated in the midst of a fertile alluvial plain, through the centre of which flows quietly the Arno, on whose banks reposes in silence and tranquillity, this ancient city. The river is much broader here than at Florence; but still preserves its yellow colour. The LUNG ARNO is also wider on each side of the stream-and that which forms a crescent on the northern bank, collecting into a focus the rays of a Winter sun, and sheltered from the tramontane blast by a mountain in the rear, is admirably adapted for an invalid residence during the months of December, January, and February. It affords a most comfortable and salutary promenade, even in the depth of Winter. I pitched my tent at the HUSSAR (L'USSERO) by the recommendation of my fellow-traveller, Mr. Bruno-and to all my countrymen, I recommend this hotel, not only on account of its own intrinsic merits, but of the honorable and friendly conduct of its excellent master. I cannot conscientiously say less-and I need not say more.

LEANING TOWER.

Having only two days to spare for Pisa, they were not spent in idleness. The celebrated leaning tower was the first object of curiosity, not only on its own account, but on account of the magnificent view which its summit presents, of town and country-of mountain and flood-of ocean and of Apennine.

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A single glance over this interesting scene convinces the experienced eye that PISA is not a safe residence in Summer or Autumn. The alluvial flat which surrounds it, and stretches from the base of the mountains to the borders of the Mediterranean, must furnish all the elements of malaria, in the hot season of the year-and that in ample quantities. But, in Winter, it is one of the best asylums for an invalid of which Italy can boast.

The tower on which I stand, leans so extravagantly to one side, that it is very painful to look down from that side to the ground. The two antagonizing opinions-one, that the inclination was given during the erection of the tower-the other that it occurred afterwards, from defect in the foundation, appear to be both true, and both erroneous. That the lower third was built straight, but subsequently inclined from the perpendicular, is evident from the pillars being all of the same length;-that the middle and upper portions were afterwards constructed with the view of remedying the effects of the inclination, seems almost certain from the pillars being longer on one side of the tower than on the other. This belfry, in fact, has three inclinations; the lowest and highest being nearly in the same direction. If Pisa be ever visited by even a slight shock of an earthquake, I think this tower will come down-and then Heaven help the inhabitants of those houses that are built directly under the tottering structure. I should not like to be in it or on it, when the huge bell on its summit is tolled-if it ever be now tolled.

The chief lions of Pisa are all crowded into one quarter—which is a great convenience for those who, like myself, may be very transitory sojourners. "There stand the cathedral, the baptistery, the leaning tower, and the Campo Santo-all built of the same marble-all varieties of the same architecture-all venerable with years—and fortunate both in their society and their solitude." It has been remarked by a very ingenious modern traveller that "the general effect of the leaning tower is so pleasing that—like Alexander's wry-neck-it might well bring leaning into fashion amongst all the towers in Christendom." I confess that the effect on my senses was very different, and that a contemplation of the building from below excited the idea of painful deformity; while that from above added a sense of danger to pain. When we can abstract our attention from the fear of "toppling down headlong," we enjoy a very magnificent panorama, the smooth Mediterranean and the rugged Apennines bounding a level and fertile valley teeming with all the vegetable productions of Nature, and meandered by the winding Arno. The city of the living is on one side-the city of the dead on the other; while the cathedral and baptistery point to the skies, and seem to direct our thoughts to Heaven.

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It is impossible to pacea long the solemn aisles and arcades of this venerable cemetery, in which the ashes of the illustrious dead are deposited in the sacred and actual earth of Mount Calvary, transported hither by a pious fellow-warrior of Cœur de Lion, 800 years ago, without feeling an awe of consciousness that we are treading on holy ground-that ground on which the Redeemer of mankind bore the agonies of death for the redemption of our sins! The innumerable scenes, some of them awful enough, taken from sacred, profane, and fabulous history, as extended round the walls of this vast burial-ground, produce different impressions on differently constituted minds. I do not envy, perhaps because I cannot feel, that sentiment of curiosity which is capable of engrossing and absorbing the whole attention of a traveller, in the critical examination of the "PROGRESS of PAINTING," as portrayed beneath these silent arcades.

"Such cloistered cemeteries (says Forsyth) as this, were the field where painting first appeared in the dark ages, on emerging from the subterranean cemeteries of Rome. In tracing the rise and genealogy of modern painting, we might begin in the catacombs of the fourth century, and follow the succession of pictures down to those of St. Pontian and Pope Julius; then, passing to the Greek image-makers of the tenth and eleventh centuries, we should soon arrive at this Campo Santo which exhibits the art growing, through several ages, from the simplicity of indigence to the simplicity of strength.

Here the immensity of surface to be covered forbade all study of perfection, and only required facility and expedition. The first pictures shew us what the artist was when separated from the workman. They betray a thin, timid, ill-fed pencil; they present corpses rather than men, sticks rather than trees, inflexible forms, flat surfaces, long extremities, raw tints, any thing but nature. As you follow the chronology of the wall, you catch perspective entering into the pictures, deepening the back-ground, and then adjusting the groups to the plans. You see the human figure first straight, or rather stretched; then foreshortened, then enlarged: rounded, salient, free, various, expressive. Throughout this sacred ground, painting preserves the austerity of the Tuscan school: she rises sometimes to its energy and movement, she is no where sparing of figures, and has produced much of the singular, the terrible, the impressive ;—but nothing that is truly excellent.

All the subjects are taken from Scripture, the Legends, or Dante; but in depicting the life of a patriarch or a saint, the artists have given us the dress, the furniture, and the humours of their own day. A like anacronism has introduced some portraits of illustrious Tuscars, which are rather fortunate in such works as these. But how many anachronisms disfigure the first paintings in Italy! How painful it is to see, in the finest Nativities and

Crucifixions, a St. Francis, or St. Dominic, or the donatore, or the painter himself, or the painter's mistress, looking out of the picture and impudently courting your remark!"

The histories of Job, of Esther, and of Judeth-the frail, perhaps the impious attempt to represent the creation-the awful events of the book of Genesis-the adoration of the Magi-Balshazzar's feast-the universal judgment, in which Solomon is represented as dubious whether he shall be placed on the right or the left hand of the Saviour-but above all, the horrible scenes illustrating the TRIUMPHS of DEATH, excited in my mind any thing rather than the cool and calculating criticisms of the pictorial artist! The vanity and the nothingness of man are recalled at every step round this vast repository of human ashes, where the silence of the scene is well calculated to, engender melancholy reflections, and draw a gloom of sorrow over the sinking heart!

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Famed CAMPO SANTO! where the mighty dead

Of elder days, in Parian marble sleep,
Say, who is she that ever seems to keep
Watch o'er thy precints; save when mortal tread
Invades the awful stillness of the scene?

Then struggling to suppress the heavy sigh
And brushing the big tear-drop from her eye,
She veils her face-and glides yon tombs between.
'Tis GRIEF! by that thick veil the maid I know,
Moistened with tears which never cease to flow!

The city of Pisa is the most silent city I have ever visited-except Pompeii. She seems to mourn her fallen greatness more than Rome herself—perhaps because that greatness has more recently vanished! The streets are wider and cleaner than those of Italian cities generally-the inhabitants appear mild and obliging—and altogether it seems a peaceful abode for a sickly stranger who wishes to evade the Winter blasts and gloomy skies of Northern regions.*

* The feelings of an invalid are important documents upon such occasions." Mr. Matthews, who was of this description, remarks :-" I believe that Pisa is the very best place on the Continent, during the Winter, for complaints' of the chest; and Nice, of which I speak from good authority, is perhaps the very worst. The air of the first, which is situated in a low plain, is warm, mild, and muggy-that of the second, is pure, keen, and piercing. The air of Montpellier is of this latter character ;-it is as different from Pisa as frisky cider from milk and water, and every mouthful of it irritates weak lungs, and sets them coughing."-Diary of an Invalid.

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